


Jaeger

by KiaraAlexisKlay



Category: The Headless Horseman - Thomas Mayne Reid, The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Idiots in Love, Klaroline Fall Bingo 2020, Mentions of canon character death, Not Sure If the Dead Are Staying Dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 13:06:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30072681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiaraAlexisKlay/pseuds/KiaraAlexisKlay
Summary: Bonnie's Death Was The Beginning Of The End.
Relationships: Caroline Forbes/Klaus Mikaelson
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	Jaeger

**Jaeger**

Bonnie’s death was the beginning of the end. 

While life certainly hadn’t gone the way Caroline had planned – becoming a vampire in the name of being the literal interpretation of someone tossing a piece of furniture at the slavering beast in an attempt to have just a few seconds worth of life was _so_ not in her “Where Do You See Yourself In Five Years” essay. That was manageable…to an extent.

She dealt, okay?

Waking up a wholly new creature those short years ago: so strong, so powerful, so incredibly and utterly and ravenously _thirsty_ – so completely lonely and frightened and just so freaking _terrified_ and the sheer _not knowing_ of what the hell, oh god, why is this happening, it can’t be happening can it?!?…all of which she overcame.

Being ostracized by the people who should have been there for her; to literally have to beg for her chance to walk in the sun as if _she_ had made the choice herself instead of it being decided behind her back like much of what was to follow …. To be threatened and almost run out of her own home by her mother –twice! Losing Matt to the lies and attempts at protecting him from her newfound nature; trying to make herself feel helpful and needed and so desperately wanting someone to understand her and becoming soul-bound to Tyler in the process; the numerous times she was shot, tortured, murdered….over and over again.

She dealt.

She went along with the schemes – when she was made aware – to defend her friends and the town she had once loved and loathed in equal measure to the Sources of The Monster, that feral _Other_ reveling in the copper heat of her veins. She played the bait and the sacrifice and tried not to be ensnared herself.

A reluctant confession and a desperate, nearly punishing meeting of flesh and bone against the unforgiving harshness of bark and bramble as she attempted to exorcise the brimming excess of lust, hurt, anger, fear, and potential all in one, lingering afternoon in the woods.

But all that came to a head. The knowledge that Bonnie, her dearest friend, had sacrificed herself on Cupid’s bloody altar…that was the beginning; compounded by having her potential Klaus-and-Tyler rebound slash friend slash unintentional sireling being viciously murdered by St Elena in the Never-ending Salvatore Drama and having to deal with a not-as-dead-as-they-had-wanted Silas (see Bonnie sacrificing herself) for the [hopefully] final time.

Caroline was done.

Wrapping up the Silas 2.0 Debacle and the horror that was the Augustine Society, and yet another supernatural link in the preternatural version of Six Ways To Kevin Bacon starring Elena freaking Gilbert… yeah, that was it.

Packing up her mini fridge and what remained of her sanity, she flipped off Whitmore, and doppelgangers, and friends who weren’t goodbye.

Was that really just freshman year?

All of that led her to now, partaking of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow Walk, a hike of about 3.42 miles around famous sites said to have inspired Washington Irving to write his version and the most popular of the Headless Horseman.

The modern setting of the famous literary town was only 30 miles from New York City, where she had finally settled into the New York School of Interior Design. 

Wanting to do something cool for Halloween this year, she created an itinerary and fully intended on completing all the 5 Things To Do In Sleepy Hollow on her Fall break, and she found she was actually excited about the cheesy little tourist bits, the nostalgia of small town trying to make a living a bittersweet experience as she was on the flip side of visitor. 

**“The Headless Horseman was a friend of mine.”**

That infuriating smirk made itself known in the few blinks and heartbeats it took for her brain to register what was spoken.

“Shut up!”

The half-hearted swat landed only because Caroline knew Klaus was humoring her while being his normal, strategic and opportunist self. The currently relaxed Hybrid took any and all chances of Caroline _willingly_ laying her hands on him, even if they were often fueled by exasperated violence.

“I’m quite serious, Love, he was a Hessian Jaeger and had he not perished during the Battle of White Plains in 1776, he very well could have been one of my sired,” the dimpled devil grinned at her. 

For a moment, Caroline forgot the obnoxiously persistent Original had invited himself on this particular fall outing.

“That’s ….insane,” she finally settled on.

The crisp, cooling autumn air competing with the sun’s last, feeble attempts at bathing the world in as much warmth as it was still able brought to mind another walk in the woods with this same man and made it difficult for her to focus.

“Hmmm,” he hummed, eyes glinting as if he knew the exact memory her thoughts had wandered into.

It hadn’t been easy, starting from scratch. Being so far away from home and the meager support of Team Current Doppelganger was a challenge Caroline hadn’t factored. A natural people person and social butterfly, being The New Girl for the first time ever was rougher than she thought those first few months, not even factoring in the vampire aspect.

A [perhaps it shouldn’t be] surprising supporter of this newfound independence?

Klaus.

Of course.

Klaus-Freaking-Mikaelson was a Grade A stalker along with being an obnoxious busybody. But Caroline was finding she couldn’t truly fault him. Even if she verbally accused him of such - loudly and often - it was half-hearted at worst, a wry inside joke at best.

Caroline herself had opened the door in one of her lonely, moments of weakness. She only wished she had Face-timed or Skyped to see the Original’s face when one lonely night she shoved her pride and awkwardness to the side and steamrolled over his concern by informing him that friend’s talk, and they both have been suck-y at it, and she wasn’t going to wait around for him to make the first move anymore.

The almost shocked silence on his part had her smirking then and bolstered her confidence into an ease she had not had since she walked away from all that was familiar.

Caroline made use of a slight stumble over some bramble to grip a proffered forearm and refused to relinquish her grip, to Klaus’s pleased grin.

“So tell me more about this friend … he have a name?”

**Author's Note:**

> ~-~-~  
> Prompt: The Headless Horseman Was A Friend of Mine  
> @klarolinefallbingo2020
> 
> Please note that this was originally posted on Tumblr as "Vampires, Hybrids, and Hessians, Oh My!" and I felt this new title - as well as tweaking the order of some of the paragraphs - fit a lot better with what I originally had intended for this piece.


End file.
